Kilian Ignac
6. 5. – 17. 6. 2018
Curated by Petr Vaňous
Galerie Dům, Broumov
In 1729, Iceland was a country wracked by violence and poverty. That year, the scholar and manuscript collector Árni Magnússon (1663–1730) invited the renowned architect Kilian Ignaz Dientzenhofer (1689–1751) to build a cathedral on the icy island. After completing his work on the monastery in Broumov – but regrettably also after the death of Árni Magnússon – Dientzenhofer undertook the adventurous journey to Iceland in 1733 to find a suitable place for the building. The locals warmly welcomed him. He travelled the length and breadth of the country, but did not find a suitable site, and so he returned to Europe to continue his other building projects. Fortunately for us, the designs for the planned cathedral have survived, as have several Baroque paintings intended as part of the building’s interior decoration. It is truly exciting that the National Gallery in Prague is now presenting a part of this ambitious project that, due to these unfavourable circumstances, was unfortunately never realized, causing Iceland to forever miss out on the Baroque.
